


a glowstick in the dark

by spoke



Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 11:13:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8888686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spoke/pseuds/spoke





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [petragem](https://archiveofourown.org/users/petragem/gifts).



It started at five in the morning, when Erin couldn’t understand why she’d woken up. She lay in bed for a few minutes, glaring at the ceiling and listening in case anything was happening downstairs, but the place was silent as the grave. At which thought she winced and muttered, “Thank you Holtzmann for the constant terrible jokes that are clearly rubbing off on me.”

Then she shoved off the covers and headed for the bathroom, since she clearly wasn’t getting back to sleep any time soon. 

It was as she was washing her hands that she saw the ghost watching her in the mirror.

* * *

“So I screamed, I mean who expects that?!” Erin asked, looking over her shoulder to wave Patty over as she came.

Patty shook her head and thunked her latest stack of books on the table. “Alright, what did I miss? Holtzmann, stop grinning. You know it creeps me out when you grin like that, makes me think something terrible has happened.” 

Holtzmann’s grin didn’t fade a bit as she announced, “A ghost was watching Erin pee this morning.”

As Erin sputtered and Patty shook her head in disgust, Abby rolled her eyes and threw a paper ball at Holtzmann. “Can we focus here? We don’t even know where the ghost is now, for one thing, and I’d like to know. There’s nothing new in the containment unit, I know that, I checked when I came down this morning.” 

“Oh, right, I never finished telling you - so I screamed and then _it_ screamed and then it flew off through the wall! I tried to chase after it but by the time I got shoes on and made it downstairs, no one was around who’d paid attention to where it went.” Erin pinched the bridge of her nose as she muttered, “No one even seemed to care, but I guess we’ll get a call if it turns up in someone else’s bathroom.”

“Yeah, well, this is New York. You show us something new, five minutes later it’s old news. People have actually got used to ghosts.” Patty shrugged and started unpacking books. “You know, we need to turn some part of this place into a library. Maybe with a lock on the door? Because I found some stuff I am not comfortable with just anyone off the street reading, let me tell ya.” 

Holtzmann leaned over to check out the titles. “What is this? Tobin’s Spirit Guide? Is this actually like a ghost directory?!” She started flipping through the pages, her expression slowly getting more serious. “Uh, guys... guys.”

Abby rolled her eyes and headed off to make coffee, while Erin started looking over the other titles. “Isn’t that a little unscientific?” 

Patty stared, unimpressed. “I got one word for you, and it’s leylines.” 

Erin winced and nodded. “Fair enough. Where do you want the library?”

“I’m thinking somewhere away from the lab equipment for starters, if anything ever gets loose,” she picked up a book and shook it, “I don’t want it looking for helpful tips.” 

“GUYS!” Holtzmann yelled, causing Erin and Patty to jump while Abby smirked a little. “I hate to interrupt, but I’m thinking you want to see this.” She held up the Guide to a page that made Erin and Abby stare, while Patty just nodded. “See? I told you I’d found something that shouldn’t be lying around.” 

Abby set her coffee down and took the Guide for a closer look. “This is definitely that thing that we couldn’t catch last week.” She tilted the page to make sure Erin could see everything. “Apparently it’s called Zukt? How do you even say that, it’s awful. This hand writing is a little difficult to make out though.”

“I hate that thing, I have never slipped on slime that much, it almost felt like it was chasing me instead of just aiming for me.” Erin scowled.

**Yes**

The voice caused everyone to look up and then at each other. A painful silence reigned for a few minutes and then Abby coughed. “So, uh. Anyone’s proton pack handy?”

“No, but I tell you what is, is that ghost. Right there.” Patty nodded, and they turned around to see what appeared to be a gentleman in an old-fashioned suit. He waved as they turned, and nodded to Erin. **Hello**

“Uh. Hi. Hello there, mister ghost. Excuse me, but why are you here?” Erin sputtered, looking over at Abby.

**I do apologize if I’m intruding, but you seem very bright and the rest of the landscape is rather not**

“Oookay. Can you even see us?” Holtzmann asked, pushing her chair back and crossing the room to grab a PKE meter.

**Not clearly** he intoned, drifting closer to Erin. She, in turn, backed up. **But the lady is brighter than the rest of you**

“So, this light, is it an outline, coming from inside her, what?” Abby asked, shrugging when she saw Patty’s expression. “Hey, he might be able to tell us something!” 

**Outside and shining through her **it said, and then faded away even as it reached for her.****

The silence only lasted a minute before everyone noticed the PKE meter flashing. “Okay. Interesting readings here, ladies. Can I suggest someone get reading, because I have a lot of work to do.” Holtzmann’s eyes flickered up before returning to her readings. “Erin, have you died recently? Any near-death experiences we haven’t been present for?”

“What? No! Please don’t tell me that thing thinks I’m a ghost.”

Patty leaned over Holztmann’s shoulder. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s what it’s saying. I’ll take the Guide, Abby. Erin, I’ve got something actually printed you can check.” 

“Hey, no, I’m helping them.” Erin gestured as she tried to follow Abby and Holtzmann to the lab.

Patty just stepped in front of her and steered her back to the books. “No, see, you’re setting off the machines, Erin. They can’t check what they need to with you ghosting up the place.” 

* * *

Five days later, the sightings of ghosts that appeared completely harmless had gone through the roof, which was making it a little difficult to keep up with calls. Worse, Erin showing up increased the odds of a sighting. After the fifth time that ended up dealing with a party of oddly peaceful, talkative ghosts, they decided they’d only be able to get work done if she stayed behind at the lab. 

Which meant she started answering the phones.

She really hadn’t meant to, normally they just relied on the answering machine for this, but after the fifth phone call he cheerfully ignored, she couldn’t take it anymore. She was going stir-crazy cooped up here, after all.

“Ghostbusters, how can we help you?” She answered, hoping she didn’t sound as edgy to the caller as she did to herself.

Then she had to jot down the location and type of the ghost, which was actually malevolent for once, while listening to Kevin. “Boss. Boss, you’re supposed to say Conductors of Metamusels and Stuff. Wait, why are you writing things down? Should I have been writing things down?” And the worrying thing was that he didn’t seem to realize she was glaring at him.

By the end of the seventh day, it was fair to say that she was a little over her crush. Not entirely, he was still fine as hell, but. She was starting to get the really disturbing feeling that maybe nobody was home up there.

* * *

“So, do we have any idea what’s going on now?” Erin asked, in a voice which shouldn’t be nearly so exhausted when she hadn’t been able to leave the firehouse for days.

Holtzmann nodded with a low hum. “So... basically, the slime _is_ after you. You’re like a ghost magnet all the time apparently, but right now you’re supercharged by that Zukt thing. From what I’ve gathered talking to the ghosts, most of the time people on this plane are pretty much invisible, but right now you’re like the world’s biggest glowstick and they’re just piling in for a look.” 

Abby’s jaw dropped. “Are you kidding?! So this is just going to keep happening until, what, does it wear off?” 

“Please tell me it’s gonna wear off, we can’t keep up with this. They’re all over the place Holtzmann, I just gave some spook directions to the train while I was getting a soda.” Patty chimed in, and rolled her eyes when the others stared. “What? We can’t catch ‘em all, we already know the containment unit couldn’t take it, and he wasn’t doing anything crazy. I just told the dude how to get where he was going.”

“I never thought I would say this, but that is fair. We should definitely focus on the malevolent ones.” Erin said faintly, and then sat hard on the floor. From which position she looked up at Holtzmann in panic. “Please please please say it’s going to wear off.”

The fact that she was grinning like she was in the lab reassured no one. “Oh yeah, eventually. I just don’t know when. Could be a month, could be a year.” 

Erin folded over and buried her head between her legs with a groan.

Patty sighed and sat down to slide her arm around Erin’s shoulders. “Hang in there, okay? We’re working on it. Something one of the weirder ghosts said made me think there migt be a solution, we just gotta find the right references.”

Erin peeked up at her. “Does this mean more books?”

Holtzmann and Patty grinned, and for once it was disturbingly similar. “By the time we’re done? New York’s libraries are going to be asking to borrow from us.” Holtzmann bragged, and Patty looked up at her sharply. “And what do we tell them if they do?”

“Suck it.” Holtzmann grinned, and Patty closed her eyes with a long-suffering expression. “No. Just no. Don’t do that.”

* * *

“Alright, Erin? Can you come down here?” Abby called.

Erin sighed heavily and considered just staying in bed, but she knew that wouldn’t really work. One of them was bound to come up here and drag her down there for whatever it was. “Okay!” she yelled back, just to make sure they wouldn’t.

When she got down the stairs, though, she almost wished she hadn’t. One of the tables had been covered with a cloth, and there were roses and candles and something was sitting on the center of it and _bubbling_. It was an almost neon green, not unlike slime although not as viscous. She looked up to find the rest of the girls staring at her, with a mixture of worry and excitement that in Holtz’s case was mostly excitement. 

“What is all this?” she asked, gesturing at the whole mess.

Abby coughed. “Well, _hopefully_ this is the solution to our ghost problem.” 

“At least the current extras, we can’t do anything about you being naturally shiny.” Holtz chimed in, seemingly oblivious as always to the glares this earned her. 

Patty shook her head, and gestured at the cup of hopefully not slime. “See, this is supposed to drain off all the extra nasty so you go back to being only a little lit up instead of a neon sign inviting every ghost on the other side to New York.”

Erin bit her lip and drifted closer to the table. “And I’m supposed to drink this, or-”

She was cut off by everyone yelling, “NO” at once.

“Please don’t, there’s actual slime in there. Amoung other things I don’t really care to discuss, okay?” Abby said, and between her nauseous expression and Patty’s, and Holtz’s ‘please ask me’ look Erin decided she was never ever going to do so. 

“So, what am I supposed to do?” Erin asked, finally coming up to the table. “And what’s with the flowers and candles?” 

Holtzmann shrugged, watching her eagerly. “I just thought they added a little ambience. We’re about to de-glowstick you, right?” She waited a moment, then nudged the cup towards Erin. 

“Okay, then. It’s a party!” Erin said, feeling a little like she was missing something. The way Abby and Patty were looking at her, and at Holtz, she was defintely missing _something._

“You just hold that, and if we made it right it’ll do its thing. Then we just dump it in the containment unit and never speak of it again.” Patty said.

So she picked it up, and the last thing she remembered was saying that she felt a little cold, and hearing Patty say, “Holy shit!”

* * *

She came to with her head in someone’s lap, and knew even before she opened her eyes what the answer to her question was going to be. But she had to ask. “I’m covered in slime, aren’t I?”

“Epic quantities.” Holtzmann said, and Erin could hear the grin, which made her struggle to sit up. _That_ led to the discovery that she was in fact _not_ covered in some kind of extra-horrible slime. Holtz shrugged at her suspicious look. “Funny thing was, it sort of exploded out of the glass, covered you like a giant jello mold, turned _purple_ , and then shrunk back into the glass. It was one of the _wierdest_ things I have ever seen. I’m gonna study it later.”

Abby frowned, pushing her glasses back up. “Come on, Holtzmann, give her a minute to recoup here.” Though Erin couldn’t help noticing she was still checking out the readings on a PKE. 

Patty laughed sharply as she came back into the room. “Actually you’re not, Dr. Frankenstein. It’s in the containment unit now.” 

“Hey! I wanted to study that, come on!” Holtz said, getting up and actually looking a little angry for once.

Abby coughed and whispered to Erin, “We figured it was the best way to keep from seeing a repeat of this.”

“It has been a mess.” Erin replied just as quietly, while their friends started getting louder.

“Well you’ll have to figure out how to get it back out of there, then, but I for one have had enough of this being the tourist hot spot for every gawking idiot ghost that ever died.” Patty snapped, and handed Holtz what was apparently the trap she’d used to get it contained. “Here, study this, there’s gotta be something left on it you can use.”

“Well, probably.” Holtz replied sulkily, and Erin decided this was her moment to make a quick exit, a decision reinforced by Abby making shooing motions towards the stairs.

* * *  
The next day in the lab was wonderfully normal, except that Erin couldn’t stop thinking about the table that antidote had been sitting on. So she decided to ask Abby about it, because it was a little surreal. “It just feels like she’s trying to tell me something and I’m not getting it, okay?”

“Pretty bad. Okay.” Abby nodded. “So, Holtzmann has been doing that to you since like, day one. Only she’s been classier about it, and believe me I wouldn’t have used that particular word to describe Holtzmann flirting until I saw you chasing Kevin.”

Erin rolled her eyes and shoved Abby’s arm. “Okay, you can stop now. I get it!” She paused a minute, looking around at the lab. “So... what do you think I should do? I mean.. flowers don’t seem very Holtz.”

Abby rolled her eyes and snatched the equipment Erin was fiddling with away from her. “She asks you out at least once a week, Erin. You know all the stuff she tries to get you to do?” She laughed at her friend’s embarrased expression. “Yeah! So next time, just say yes. She will be thrilled, I promise you.” 

“If you think so?” Erin smiled, starting to look a little excited. She jumped as she heard Holtzmann and Patty come back. “Okay, I’m just.” She glanced down, gesturing at her outfit. “I am just going to go change, this is awful. This is awful right?” She said, looking up at Abby in a sudden panic. Without waiting for a reply, she rushed upstairs.

“What I don’t know is how the rest of us are going to live with this.” Abby muttered, shaking her head.


End file.
